The topic at last nights local .NET User Group was "Tools I can’t live without". Joel Meikle (from Meikle Programming) had a massive list of tools... I use most of  them and the ones I don't use I will be looking into. Below is a list of tools I can't do without. This table below doesn't include any of the SharePoint Development Tools or Administration Tools I previously blogged about. NOTE: These tools are in no particular order!

This post is for anyone in New Zealand that is interested in the latest and greatest from MSFT & HP in the Small Business and Cloud-Based Services space... If you haven't already done so, check out the following two events:

• Microsoft Unplugged series (to register)
  the presentation by Nigel Parker is titled: UNPLUGGED MSDN Update: Get Ready for Cloud-Based Services, IE8 & Silverlight 2
• HP-Microsoft SBS 2008 ROK Road Show (to register)

Both events are being run on the same day in most centres, with the HP-MSFT session in the morning and the unplugged session in the afternoon. For more details on both the events visit the NZ SBSC (Small Business Specialist Community) blog.

Over the past couple of days I have been playing with an internal project, so I thought I would play and query the lists with LINQ... here is what I came up with!

Because a SPListItemCollection inherits from ICollection, we can attack it with a LINQ query... and that we shall!

A bit of background, I am using a Web Part to render the information to the user. The Web Part has a several properties for the user to supply information to configure it (they will appear in the "Miscellaneous" section of the Web Part Properties Pane). The properties are as follows, the CAML property is optional, but it gives an easy way to filter information from the list without going into the code:

   1: Private _siteurl As String = ""

   2: <WebBrowsable(True), _

   3: WebDisplayName("Web Site URL *"), _

   4: WebDescription("The site the list is located."), _

   5: Personalizable(PersonalizationScope.User)> _

   6: Public Property SiteURL() As String

   7:     Get

   8:         Return Me._siteurl

   9:     End Get

  10:     Set(ByVal value As String)

  11:         Me._siteurl = value

  12:     End Set

  13: End Property

  14:  

  15: Private _listGuid As String = ""

  16: <WebBrowsable(True), _

  17: WebDisplayName("Test Management List GUID *"), _

  18: WebDescription("Enter the GUID for the List."), _

  19: Personalizable(PersonalizationScope.User)> _

  20: Public Property ListGUID() As String

  21:     Get

  22:         Return Me._listGuid

  23:     End Get

  24:     Set(ByVal value As String)

  25:         Me._listGuid = value

  26:     End Set

  27: End Property

  28:  

  29: Private _camlQuery As String = ""

  30: <WebBrowsable(True), _

  31: WebDisplayName("CAML query for the webpart"), _

  32: WebDescription("Enter the CAML for the List."), _

  33: Personalizable(PersonalizationScope.User)> _

  34: Public Property CAML() As String

  35:     Get

  36:         Return Me._camlQuery

  37:     End Get

  38:     Set(ByVal value As String)

  39:         Me._camlQuery = value

  40:     End Set

  41: End Property

The first thing we need to do in the process is attach to the site and then web that we want we want to query. To do this I do the following:

   1: ' Create a Web object to use through the routine

   2: Dim Web as SPWeb

   3: ' Crate a local SPWeb Object

   4: Dim _thisweb As SPWeb

   5: ' Open the site with the URL supplied by the user

   6: Dim SiteColl As SPSite = New SPSite(SiteURL)

   7: _thisweb = SiteColl.OpenWeb

   8: ' Write the SPWeb Object to the property

   9: Web = _thisweb

  10: ' Clean up the SPWeb Object

  11: _thisweb.Dispose()

  12: _thisweb.Close()

This gives us an SPWeb object to play with. In the next snippet of code we attach to the list and create a CAML query object (SPQuery) that we will apply if it was supplied:

   1: ' Attach to the list

   2: Dim thisListGUID As Guid = New Guid(_listGuid)

   3: Dim list As SPList = Web.Lists(thisListGUID)

   4:  

   5: ' Define the Query

   6: Dim query As SPQuery = New SPQuery(list.DefaultView)

   7: If CAML <> "" Then

   8:     query.Query = CAML

   9: End If

Now we have all of that set up, we can make the LINQ query. in this query we are simply retrieving the data, but it is possible to sort, group by etc. as well.

   1: Dim linqQuery = From Z As SPListItem In list.GetItems(query) _

   2:                                   Select Z

Now we have the information, we can loop through it and do what we want with it. Below I have shown we can use a Lambda Query to group SharePoint information. In the example list I have Title, Category and Status fields and I want to group the information by the Category and then do something depending on the status, it may be some conditional formatting depending on other properties or maybe assign a task... anything really.

The reason for the substring is that SharePoint formats fields with an ID and then the Human Readable value, e.g. 1;#Status. We only want what is after the #.

   1: Dim CategoryTitle as String = ""

   2: For Each i In linqQuery.GroupBy(Function(a As SPListItem) a("Category"))

   3:     CategoryTitle = i.Key.ToString.Substring(i.Key.ToString.LastIndexOf("#") + 1)

   4:     For Each item In i

   5:         Select Case item("Status").ToString

   6:             Case "Open"

   7:                 ' Do Something

   8:             Case "Closed"

   9:                 ' Do Something

  10:             Case Else

  11:                 ' Do Something else

  12:         End Select

  13:     Next

  14: Next 

Hopefully that is a fairly quick and easy demo of how to get information from SharePoint as objects and use them!

In this post I am going to explain how to use the latest bits of the .NET framework (.NET 3.5 SP1) to display images from a database so the user sees them with a *.JPG extension. This is something that should be simple, yet, takes a little bit of work! The scenario I am using is as follows:

• MSFT SQL 2005 Database
• .NET 3.5 SP1 Entity Framework
• .NET 2.5 SP1 Routing Engine
• ASP.NET Web Forms
• IIS 7 on a Vista PC (But works on Server 2008)

OK so to paint the picture, by the end of this we will be able to access an image from a URL that looks like this: http://yoursite.com/Image/imgID-1-T.jpg. This will return the image with ID of 1 and it will be a thumbnail image, but I will show how to display either the thumbnail or full size version, or what ever you want!

Displaying the images in an ASP.NET Webform

Rendering the image to a web page can be quite a cool thing to do, the code below takes a few different pieces of a pie and puts them nicely together! I will start off by accessing the data, then altering the images (if needed) and finally rendering the images to the page.

Note: As this page will be accessed via a routing rule that passes in the name of the JPG being accessed through, the JPG has to be named with the format of ImageType-ImageID-ImageSize.

For this example, I have created a folder called _Images. Inside that folder I have an aspx page called image.aspx. The actual ASPX page is standard as shown below:

   1: <%@ Page Language="vb" AutoEventWireup="false" CodeBehind="Image.aspx.vb" Inherits="Example.Image" EnableTheming="false" StylesheetTheme="" %>

   2: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

   3: <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >

   4: <head id="Head1" runat="server">

   5:     <title>Image</title>

   6: </head>

   7: <body>

   8:  

   9: </body>

  10: </html>

Database

The database in this example is a simple one table set-up with two columns in it, the table is called Images.

• ImageID - Int field to hold the image ID
• Image - Image field

Here is the SQL for the table:

   1: CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Images](

   2:     [ImageID] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,

   3:     [Image] [image] NOT NULL,

   4:  CONSTRAINT [PK_Images] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 

   5: (

   6:     [ImageID] ASC

   7: )WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF, 

   8: IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON) ON [PRIMARY]

   9: ) ON [PRIMARY] TEXTIMAGE_ON [PRIMARY]

  10:  

  11: GO

Code Behind

My data-source is the Entity Framework (EF), but you could use any source to populate the code. First off I need to reference the System.Data namespaces that will allow me to work with the EF, also I have added a reference to the System.Drawing namespace that I will use to resize the images.

   1: Imports System.Data.Objects

   2: Imports System.Data.Objects.DataClasses

   3: Imports System.Drawing.Image

The Process of generating the image

In this section I will explain how the code below works and what is happening through out.

Here is how the code below works:

1. First we need to create the EF context that we will use to get the images from the data classes. This is the ImageData definition.
2. The first thing we need to do in the Page_Load is to split up the name of the file. I will explain later how the file is routed to this page, but as we are using the routing rules, we need to get this name from the HttpContect. ImageName is set in the routing rules to pass the name of the image through to this page (see the Routing the Images using a *.JPG File section). 
3. Now that we have access to the data and the image ID, we need to get the image out of the database. This is done using a lambda query on the context we opened above. We pass this to an instance of the Images class (this is an EF generated class).
4. As we are not rendering an aspx text page, we need to change the Content Type of the output, this is now "image/jpeg"
5. The next part of the process is to resize the image. As part of the image naming process (e.g. <img scr="/image/ImgID-1-T.jpg">) you need to make sure you have the "-" in the same order as I have and that you are using a size character you have defined in the code below.
   Notice there are three options, T and S being the resize options and the final is just rendering the full size image.

   1: Dim ImageData as new ImageEntities

   2: Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load

   3:     'Split the File Name out to get the information we need

   4:     Dim ImageInfo As String() = Context.Items("imagename").ToString.Split("-")

   5:     

   6:     'In this example I am only accessing one data source, you could access many,

   7:     'add a Select Case with the Image Type and select from other areas

   8:     Dim ImageType As String = ImageInfo(0) 

   9:     

  10:     'We need the ID of the image

  11:     Dim ImageID As Integer = ImageInfo(1)

  12:     

  13:     'We need to know what size to change it to

  14:     Dim ImageSize As String = ImageInfo(2)

  15:     

  16:     Dim Images As ImageModel.Images

  17:     Images = ShoppingData.Images.FirstOrDefault( _

  18:                         Function(i As Images) i.ImageID = ImageID)

  19:     

  20:     'Cast the Image data from the database to a Byte()

  21:     Dim aryContent As Byte() = DirectCast(Images.Image, Byte())

  22:     

  23:     'Create a new Memory Stream to hold the contents of the 

  24:     'image in ready for the Drawing.Image

  25:     Dim imgStream As New IO.MemoryStream

  26:     

  27:     Dim dummyCallBack As GetThumbnailImageAbort

  28:     dummyCallBack = New System.Drawing.Image.GetThumbnailImageAbort( _

  29:                                                         AddressOf ThumbnailCallback)

  30:  

  31:     imgStream.Write(aryContent, 0, aryContent.Length)

  32:  

  33:     Dim Img As System.Drawing.Image

  34:     Img = Drawing.Image.FromStream(imgStream)

  35:     

  36:     'Set the MIME tyoe

  37:     Response.ContentType = "image/jpeg"

  38:     'Resize the image if we need to

  39:     If ImageSize = "T" Then

  40:         'This will keep the image 100px high and change the width to keep the 

  41:         'ratio correct

  42:         Dim ratio = Img.Width / Img.Height

  43:         Dim height = 100

  44:         Dim width = 100 * ratio

  45:         Dim thumbnail As Drawing.Image = Img.GetThumbnailImage( _ 

  46:                                             width, height, dummyCallBack, IntPtr.Zero)

  47:         thumbnail.Save(Response.OutputStream, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Jpeg)

  48:     ElseIf ImageSize = "S" Then

  49:         'This will keep the image 100px wide and change the height to keep the 

  50:         'ratio correct

  51:         Dim ratio = Img.Height / Img.Width

  52:         Dim height = 100 * ratio

  53:         Dim width = 100

  54:         Dim thumbnail As Drawing.Image = Img.GetThumbnailImage(width, height, _

  55:                                                            dummyCallBack, IntPtr.Zero)

  56:         thumbnail.Save(Response.OutputStream, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Jpeg)

  57:     Else

  58:         Img.Save(Response.OutputStream, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Jpeg)

  59:     End If

  60:     Response.End()

  61: End Sub

The above code will now render an image, but will have to go via the routing engine. If you want to skip that step change the Context.Items code to a Request.QueryString and pass through some parameters that way.

Routing the Images using a *.JPG File

To route the images with a certain path and extension I used the example Chris Cavanagh gave on his blog. His example was in C#, so I converted it and have the VB example below. First off, I added a new class file to my project and put the routing functions in that. Then I referenced those classes from the global.asax.

PageRouter Class

The PageRouter class will handle all the setting of page routing rules. The first thing we have to do is reference some of the namespaces we are going to use in the class:

   1: Imports System

   2: Imports System.Web

   3: Imports System.Web.UI

   4: Imports System.Web.UI.HtmlControls

   5: Imports System.Web.UI.WebControls

   6: Imports System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts

   7: Imports System.Web.Routing

   8: Imports System.Web.Compilation

The first class we want to create is a page handler class that will have our custom IRouteHandler and will do the registering of our rules. For more information about what happens in this class, please read Chris' blog.

   1: Public Class WebFormRouteHandler(Of T As {IHttpHandler, New})

   2:         Implements IRouteHandler

   3:         Private _virtualpath

   4:         Public Property VirtualPath() As String

   5:             Get

   6:                 Return _virtualpath

   7:             End Get

   8:             Set(ByVal value As String)

   9:                 _virtualpath = value

  10:             End Set

  11:         End Property

  12:  

  13:         Public Sub New(ByVal virtualPath As String)

  14:             _virtualpath = virtualPath

  15:         End Sub

  16:  

  17: #Region "IRouteHandler Members"

  18:         Public Function GetHttpHandler(ByVal requestContext As System.Web.Routing.RequestContext) _

  19:         As System.Web.IHttpHandler Implements System.Web.Routing.IRouteHandler.GetHttpHandler

  20:             For Each value In requestContext.RouteData.Values

  21:                 requestContext.HttpContext.Items(value.Key) = value.Value

  22:             Next

  23:             If (VirtualPath IsNot Nothing) Then

  24:                 Return (DirectCast(BuildManager.CreateInstanceFromVirtualPath(VirtualPath, GetType(T)), IHttpHandler))

  25:             Else

  26:                 Return New T()

  27:             End If

  28:         End Function

  29: #End Region

  30:  

  31: End Class

Once that is done we have to create our PageRouter class, we will reference this later in the Global.asax. This class will hold all of the routing rules we want to use in our project. This project calls on the WebFormRouteHandler to register the pages.

   1: Public Class PageRouter

   2:     Public Shared Sub RegisterRoutes(ByVal routes As RouteCollection)

   3:             ' Note: Change the URL to "{controller}.mvc/{action}/{id}" to enable 

   4:             ' automatic support on IIS6 and IIS7 classic mode 

   5:             routes.Add(New Route("Image/{imagename}.jpg", New WebFormRouteHandler(Of Page)("~/_Images/Image.aspx")))

   6:     End Sub

   7: End Class

The code above will catch any requests coming for images at http://yoursite.com/image/imgID-1-T.jpg and send them to our image page. You will notice this is where we set the name of the context item, {imagename}.

Global.asax Code

Finally we need to fire the PageRouter class and register the routes. When the application starts, I want to set all then routing rules, so in the global.asax I add the following code to the Application_Start subroutine. Please note, you will have to reference the System.Web namespace (Imports System.Web.Routing).

   1: Sub Application_Start(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs)

   2:     PageRouter.RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes)

   3: End Sub

Finally

Hopefully that explains how to render a database image as a *.JPG using ASP.NET SP1! There are some cool things we can now do straight out of the box, and from what I have seen of SP1 I can't wait for it to be released!

The ASP.NET 3.5 listview control is a great tool in the arsenal of a web developer! Coming from classic ASP, I thought the gridview was the best thing since sliced bread, but it has been well trumped by the listview. A really cool thing about the listview is the ability to insert a new item, straight out-of-the-box.

This feature is great until you want to put a drop-down box in the InsertItem template. I was hit by an error and I figure it is a result of there being no data for the drop-down to set as it's selected value when it loads. So, what do we do to fix this? Well here is my solution:

ASPX ListView Code

In the ListView control, navigate to your InsertItemTemplate tag. Place a drop-down list control in the column (<td>) where you want. Below I am using an Entity Data Source (Provided by the ADO.NET Entity Framework), but you could bind it any data source you want or add values in your code behind.

   1: <InsertItemTemplate>

   2:     <tr style="background-color: #05A705;">

   3:         <td>

   4:             <asp:DropDownList ID="ddlExample" runat="server" DataSourceID="EntityDataSource" DataTextField="DataName"

   5:                 DataValueField="DataID" AppendDataBoundItems="true">

   6:                 <asp:ListItem Selected="True" Text="Select a Value" Value="" />

   7:             </asp:DropDownList>

   8:         </td>

   9:     </tr>

  10: </InsertItemTemplate>

Notice how I don't have a "SelectedItem" tag in the Drop-down list control. Putting this in will cause all sorts of issues and you'll probably get an error that looks similar to this:

System.InvalidOperationException: Databinding methods such as Eval(), XPath(), and Bind() can only be used in the context of a databound control

On Item Inserting

Because the above drop-down list isn't bound to the ListView, we need to handle the inserting ourselves. The code below shows how to modify the ListView property with a value we want, namely the selected item in the drop-down list. In the code I have to find the drop-down list in the InsertItem Template.

   1: Private Sub lvExample_ItemInserting(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Web.UI.WebControls.ListViewInsertEventArgs) Handles lvExample.ItemInserting

   2:     e.Values("ExampleID") = DirectCast( _

   3:                 lvExample.InsertItem.FindControl("ddlExample"), DropDownList).SelectedValue

   4: End Sub

The above code can be used to add any values to items in your ListView.